Drupal Dojo Sessions: Building With Drupal

Posted by gusaus on February 22, 2010 at 5:39pmLast updated by gusaus on Thu, 2017-11-02 20:38

An ongoing series covering all aspects of Drupal web development from site planning, drafting proposals, project management, information architecture, development, design, infrastructure, to business and marketing.

Upcoming Building with Drupal Webinars

PLEASE ADD YOUR PROPOSED SESSION HERE

Click on the title "Drupal Dojo Sessions" here or above to open and then edit this wiki page. We will take care of the rest--confirming availability, scheduling the web event, recording and posting the archive on https://www.youtube.com/user/drupaldojo, etc. Just let us know what you would like to do and when. Leave a comment If there's something you'd like to see!

Comments

As part of our effort to help get the Dojo running again, we'll be producing 20 live sessions on a wide range of 'good for Drupal' topics. We have a short list of presenters and topics, but it would be ideal for other community members to suggest and/or lead sessions. It's a wiki, so please don't hesitate to add your comments, ideas, suggestions, and let's get this party re-started!

I'm JUST learning Drupal, after many years designing in Dreamweaver. I'm not a programmer, I'm a graphic designer who sees the value in Drupal's versatility, but a lot of the stuff I'm viewing in tutorials has to do with knowing a lot more code than I am familiar with. Is there a simple way to take an existing theme and delete the header graphics to add my own design? I know enough to click configure to turn off the title, logo and slogan. Now my head area is clean, if I could just modify the art/image. Will I need to learn all about CSS to do this? Will the "Contextual Administration" Dojo session on March 23 help? I downloaded the linked module(?) from The Worx. Since it's in Alpha status, don't know if it's safe to add to my Drupal core modules.

See - just now learning, and at the bottom of the learning curve. Any words of encouragement would be welcome.

Did you try to consider your header as a logo?
Turn off title, but keep logo and upload your graphic as a logo under 'Logo image settings'. It works for me most of the time. Make your graphic the same size as the header region of your theme.

Looking like we need to balance out these advanced/niche sessions with some basic concepts for those still familiarizing themselves with Drupal. What topics would you like to see? Anyone interested in leading a session?

I am also a newbie, but I am beyond the "here is how you install drupal modules and set your permissions" stage. I am now trying to customize the theme, create forms, and do lots of other things that are just not working as it seems they should! I think a track on using outside graphics would be great (as backgrounds, logos, buttons, etc.), one on creating forms that work, and one on animating your website. Thanks!

In addition to mixing in more topics on Drupal fundamentals, we've decided to create an an introductory track focusing on Drupal 7 (http://groups.drupal.org/node/59743). Keep the great suggestions and feedback coming!

I reviewed an online video from a past Drupal conference where the emphasis was on bringing more designers into the Drupal groups. "Designers" is a vague term, since they come in every creative category, but from a graphic designer's standpoint, I've discovered that the flexibility I want from Drupal cannot be attained without learning CSS. I want to do simple things like drop an image into a background and take out space where I don't want it, and move content around on the page. If you have a tutorial for that - I'm in.

I've yet to discover any way of getting around knowing CSS when it comes to translating design into code that browsers render as the designer intended. I can't blame Drupal for that. This challenge and many others will be solved along the road to technological progress, as new challenges arise.

If you are coming in late, simply bounce over to the #drupal-dojo room in the IRC. We will be there and happy to help anyone gain access.

The easiest thing to do is to click on the registration link available in the list above. This will take you to the GoToMeeting registration page set up for this event. On the upper right side of the window there is a join button which you can use once you have filled in your name etc.

You can also join a session that is in progress by going directly to http://www.gotomeeting.com. Here you will find a link to "Join A Meeting". If you click here then all you will need is the meeting code number. We generally post these at the start of the meeting, in addition to tweet them and post it to various IRC channels.

After the fact you should still be able to access the archived version of the event using the link provided on this page. Alternatively, you can go directly to http://DrupalDojo.com and find the event in recent or archived events.

Please let us know how we can help. Thank you for your interest in the Drupal Dojo!

I'm new to IRC. I just bought a license for mIRC and tried to add #drupal-dojo. but when connecting it asked me for a server, network, and password. What should I put in here to join the 12:30 session today. Thanks, and sorry for the hopelessly noob question.

GET IRC SOFTWARE
One is downloading a free IRC chat application. I have taken a liking to Colloquy for the Mac. On Windows SILC & ICB are recommended.

FIREFOX / CHATZILLA
Another simple way to get started, without all the features included in an IRC application is to use a Plug-In for Firefox called ChatZilla. To Install ChatZilla in Firefox you can simply select the
Tools Menu | Add-ons | Get Add-ons then type Chatzilla in the search box.
Once it comes up you will have a button "Add to Firefox".
You will have to restart Firefox for ChatZilla to load.

TIP For NEW IRC USERS
Once you have the application you can follow jdwalling's directions above. The thing you will need to remember is that after you launch your program is that:
1- you need to first join a channel: Freenode is the one for Drupal, then
2- you need to enter a chat room: #drupal-support, or #drupal-dojo
When you enter the name of the room, on most of the applications you need to add the '#' pound sign.

To get someones attention or direct a comment to an individual simply start your line with
username:

Use tab to complete a nick, e.g. jw<tab> random comment:
- jwalling: random comment
(note: using a nick: before a comment alerts the recipient, handy on long multi-party threads like you find on #drupal-support channel)